


Born a Storm

by MaryDragon



Series: Trouble the Water [4]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Evolving Tags, Gen, Loss, Minor Character Death, One Shot Collection, Original Character Death(s), characters to be added as they appear, pre-game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-05 09:33:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13385022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryDragon/pseuds/MaryDragon
Summary: "I wish I had been born a storm. No heart, no tears, just a terrible gale'd been good." ~Kohta HiranoA collection of scenes set in my Trouble the Water Series. Stories and characters referred to in Calm Waters Run Deep will find more life here."But never have I been a calm blue sea. I have always been a storm." ~Stevie Nicks





	Born a Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from the song by Highly Suspect
> 
> The Story of Saria
> 
> Possible triggers for an abusive home situation, shitty dad, etc. There isn't a GOOD reason for an 8 year old boy to run off and start killing monsters, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10 years (ish) Pre-Calamity. 8 year old Link experiences his Call to Adventure.  
> I took great pains to write this in the voice of an 8 year old, so forgive the departure from my usual prose.
> 
> *
> 
> I recognize I am probably well out of the realm of 'canon' by this point. CWRD is perhaps AU thanks to the DLC, but I am going to continue running with this universe as I originally wrote it, rather than trying to ret-con the new information we got from DLC2. Which I STILL haven't played yet, so, yeah.

“Nuh uh!”

“Yes huh!”

“They’ve been going on for hours,” Saria complained, kicking a rock as she said it. “You’d think Mikael would just let her have it.”

“Mikael is twice Junie’s size,” I disagreed, watching the rock bounce and spin down the lane. “He would hurt her too bad.”

“No,” Saria said, and it sounded like she was laughing at me. I turned and saw her grinning in the way that made her eyes look really really _really_ green, instead of the normal just really green. “Silly. I didn’t mean _let her have it_ , like beat her up. I mean _let her have it_ , like let her be right. Let her win.”

That sounded suspiciously like cowardice to me. I frowned at her, trying to look like father did when I said something childish. “You mean give up?”

Saria rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Not you, too. If Mikael just let her win then we could all get back to hunting frogs.”

She did have a point. She gave me the same look Mother gets when Father forgets something, and then flipped her hair over her shoulder so her face disappeared for a second in a cloud of yellow. “And do you even remember what they were fighting about?”

Psh. Everybody knew I had the best memory. “Of course I do. Mikael said the frogs with the orange feet make you run faster if you eat them. And Junie said that wasn’t right, that they kept your feet warm when you stand in snow. And _Mikael_ said-“

“Okay, so, fine, whatever. You remember.”

I shrugged. I knew Saria wasn’t mad at _me_. She was bored, was all. I was bored, too. It was much more fun to catch frogs than sit on a log and listen to Mikael and Junie argue about how Junie was clearly wrong and couldn’t ever admit it. We could just go off on our own – we’d been all the way to the Great Plateau by ourselves, and nobody had even realized we were gone – but Mikael was leaving to join the Guard and today was the last day we could tromp through the woods together. Mikael said today was the last day he could just be a kid, and from where I was sitting, he was wasting it on Junie.

 _He was wasting our last day_. I pushed off the log and walked in between them. They were both a lot taller than me – Junie was as many years younger than Mikael as she was older than me – but they stopped shouting once I shoved them apart. “Mikael’s right, you’re wrong, and if you want anybody to believe you, you’d better catch a frog so we can cook it and find out what it does.”

“And we’ll never catch any frogs if you two don’t _shut up_ ,” Saria said, backing me up.

Saria always backed me up. Mother said that’s how I would know who my friends were, and Saria was my best friend. She ran up to me, took my hand, and then we ran away from the path to get back to business. These frogs weren’t going to catch themselves.

Mikael followed us, and Junie came around eventually, but by then I had a sack of frogs and I didn’t really care that she was mad at me.

The sun was just dipping behind the mountains in the distance – which meant we were just starting to get into trouble for not being home yet – when it started to rain. Junie swore and immediately ran back towards the village. Mikael stood up and followed after her. “Come on, Link. Saria. Your mothers will be upset if you’re out in the dark _and_ in the rain.”

“But the rain just makes it _perfect_ frog weather!” Saria said. “Link, you go ahead with Mikael. I’m going to see if any of the red ones come out.”

I stopped halfway between them, already having slogged out of the water to head home. “But we’re in more trouble if we go out alone than anything else,” I said, hoping to remind her of the hundreds of lectures we’d gotten over the years.

She stood up and gestured to the green everywhere around her. “This is _our_ bog. I can see the smoke from Mikael’s house from here. I can take care of myself. Go.”

“You can either stand here in the rain and argue with her like I did Junie,” Mikael said, “or you can walk back home with me and we’ll send her dad out to fetch her.”

“Rude!” Saria said, but she’d already turned her back on us and was creeping to the far edge of the water, where the red and yellow frogs would show up after it had rained for a bit. I didn’t want a repeat of the Mikael-and-Junie fight, so I waved goodbye to Saria and then followed Mikael home.

“That will give us our excuse for coming in late, too,” Mikael said as we walked. “Trying to get Saria to come in.”

“I don’t want to blame Saria for that,” I told him. “She’s already going to be in trouble enough with her parents when we tell her why she stayed behind.”

“You two,” Mikael said and laughed at me. “Even if your parents hadn’t planned it out, you’d end up married someday.”

“No,” I told him. “She’s my _friend_. I _like_ her. I don’t want to be married like Mother and Father with Saria.”

Mikael just nodded. “That’s the way marriage is supposed to be, little cousin. It’s a way to live with your best friend, forever. Your mom and dad aren’t the best example.”

He meant they weren’t friends. I didn’t like to think about it much; they didn’t argue where I could hear them, or at least not since I told Mother I didn’t like it. Father had been home a lot more because there was some kind of sickness in the Castle Town; soldiers with families had been sent home right away, with the knights and the Royal Guard making sure the sickness didn’t spread. The traders had stayed away from the Castle Town at first, but now they weren’t travelling at all; everyone was waiting for the sickness to pass.

And when it did, I would have a fat sack of frogs to sell! I could use the money to visit Mikael once he was a knight like his dad and Father and Grandfather. And then maybe I could just stay at the Castle and they would let me be a knight early!

“Link!” Mother’s voice did not sound happy to see me. “Link, you’re a mess! Where’s Saria?”

Mikael laughed at me again. I didn’t mind; he never meant to be mean. He just laughed a lot. “Because they’re never apart, are they?”

“She’s still catching frogs, Mother,” I said. “Junie came in when it started to rain, and Mikael followed her, and Saria told me to stay with Mikael because she’s close enough to see the smoke from the houses.”

“Oooh, that girl, she’s spending too much time with you. Stubborn as a Goron, she’s turning. You go inside and wash up, I’ll send her father to fetch her.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“I think you’re eating dinner with my parents tonight,” Mikael told me. “So I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Okay!” I said and then went inside our house.

Father wasn’t there, which was good. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong today, but I always did _something_ wrong no matter how hard I tried. I caught a lot of frogs to sell to the traders, and hadn’t ruined my boots, so I thought I was doing pretty good. I dropped the frogs into a big jar by the front door and then got water to clean my face and hands. I changed clothes and sat at the table and waited.

Father didn’t come in.

Mother didn’t come in.

The sun went down and it got dark.

Finally, Mikael came in to get me. “Link, come on. Dinner’s at my house, remember?”

“Where are my parents?” I asked as I followed him out of the house and down the street.

“I’m not sure,” he said. But he said it in the way adults say things when they don’t want to talk about something. Mikael wasn’t an adult, so I didn’t understand why he’d be talking to me like that. He was a lot older, but I’d thought he was my friend.

Dinner at my aunt’s house was mushroom rice balls. My uncle was home, for the same reason Father was, but he didn’t seem angry about it. Nobody seemed anything, really – not angry, not happy, not anything. They didn’t talk, they didn’t smile. And nobody would tell me where my parents were.

“Mikael’s going to walk you home and stay with you tonight,” my aunt said after we’d finished eating.

“Why?”

She and my uncle gave each other _that look_. I hate that look. They think I don’t know what that look means because I’m just a kid but I’m not stupid. Everybody knows that look.

“Saria wasn’t where we left her,” Mikael said suddenly. His mother yelled his name but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of the house. We ran down the lane back to my house and didn’t stop until we were inside with the door pulled tight and Mikael stirred up the fire in the hearth while I lit the lamps.

“Saria wasn’t where we left her? Where was she?”

“I don’t know,” Mikael answered. “Her dad and your mom went to get her, and couldn’t find her. They came back and asked me where we’d been and when I told them, your dad got there and then they had Saria’s mom go too and the four of them went out to find her. They haven’t come back yet.”

“But... it’s _dark_. They won’t find her in the dark.”

“I know. But you’re going to go to bed and I’m going to stay with you until your parents come home. Now, which bed is yours?”

When Father was home, I made a stack of rugs near the hearth and slept there. Mother told him I slept there all the time he was gone, and made me promise not to tell him the truth; the bed on the right-side of the house was mine, but Father used it when he was home. The one on the left had been torn and restitched so many times it was stiff and poked you in all the wrong places when you tried to sleep on it. Mother never let me sleep there; she said I deserved the better bed, since Father thought I needed to sleep on the floor.

“I sleep on the left, Mother on the right,” I told him. It was the first time I’d ever lied to Mikael.

He got into bed and was asleep right away. I laid on the left-hand bed, on Mother’s bed, and listened for them to come home.

*

I woke up on the rugs by the hearth. I had a blanket over me and I hadn’t been yelled at, so I knew Mother had moved me when they’d come home. I couldn’t ask her, though, because she and Father were gone. Mikael was at the table with some crepes that he must have brought from his own house, since I was blocking the hearth and I was pretty sure he couldn’t cook.

“What-“

“They didn’t find her last night, so they went back out again first thing this morning,” he told me.

“I should go!” I said. “I know all her hiding places!”

Mikael got a very serious look on his face and shook his head. “They don’t think she’s hiding, Link. Your father found some arrow gouges on a tree, and he thinks she might have been grabbed.”

I ran to the door, but he was bigger and faster and he grabbed me before I could leave.

“No! No! You have to let me help! She’s my friend, I can find her! Mikael, please!”

“I promised your parents I would make you stay here,” he said and I sunk to the floor. He wasn’t going to let me leave, and I would only get him in trouble if I found a way to sneak out. He didn’t ever get in trouble with my father, he wouldn’t know how to get out of it.

I sat on the pile of rugs and I waited. The rain started to fall again; I didn’t know when in the night it had stopped, but it was raining hard before long.

My aunt brought me a bowl of soup at noontime. I ate it all, cleaned the bowl with a corner of bread, and gave it back to her. She left. I wrapped my arms around my legs and kept waiting.

My aunt brought me dinner. It was stuffed pumpkin, my favorite. I thanked her and ate it all, but I didn’t move off my rugs all day.

I needed to stretch and pee and _move_ but I sat. And I waited.

It rained all day.

The door opened as the sun, still hidden by rain clouds, set and Mother came in. She looked at me for a long time and then shut the door. She talked to Mikael for a bit, and he told her that I hadn’t moved all day, and then she sent him home.

“Go wash up and get ready for bed. I want to talk to you for a bit.”

I stood and did as she said. I _really_ had to pee, so it took awhile before I was washed up and sitting back on my rugs. Mother was sitting on the side of the bed – the stiff, uncomfortable, pokey bed – and she looked more tired than I could remember. Her eyes had big dark bags under them, and her dress was torn. Everyone said I looked like my mother, but she was so muddy and wet and _sad_ that she looked like a stranger.

“You didn’t find her, did you?” I asked.

Mother shook her head, _no_. “We-“

“Did you go through the tunnel?”

“The what, now?”

“The tunnel, the tunnel made by the old log that goes under the river bank and goes into the old ruin?”

Mother blinked but didn’t say anything.

I waited as long as I could, but she was so _quiet_. “You didn’t go through the tunnel? Did you go to the ruins the other way? If someone fired an arrow at Saria she’d go hide in the ruins, I’m sure of it.”

Mother shook her head and sighed. “Come here, Link, my love.”

I stood up and walked over to her. She reached out and put her hands on my shoulders. “We looked. We looked everywhere. We couldn’t find her. She’s gone.”

“She’s _not gone_ ,” I told her. “I can find her. I know I can find her. I’d know if she was _gone_.”

“What does your heart say?”

It was a weird question, but Mother liked weird questions and feelings and dreams. It was Father who said I had to be tough, tougher, _toughest_.

“She’s hiding,” I answered.

“You’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

Mother sighed again, and then pulled me close to hug me. “When I carried you beneath my heart, the months before you were born, I dreamed every night. Beautiful, vibrant, _bright_ dreams. A chain of pure light, disappearing into the far ends of time. And every link of that chain was forged with stars and tempered by courage. Every night, the dream would take me down the chain and stop at the same place, at a face so much like my own that I couldn’t help but recognize it. And today I finally see that face, finally see the courage and determination that face held. I named you aright.”

“You named me after a chain? I thought Mikael was teasing about that.”

“I named you for a _dream_ ,” she corrected me. She stopped talking, frowned, and then suddenly turned her face away and coughed. She shook her head and turned back to me. “You are a part of something bigger than any of us, something I don’t understand. And, my little love, if you tell me right now that in your heart of hearts you know Saria is alive and you know you can find her, then I will believe you.”

“She’s alive. She’s _hiding_. And I can find her.”

Mother sighed again and pulled me in for another hug. “Tomorrow morning, when I wake you, make no sound. Just rise out of your blankets and go.”

“But Father-“

“You let me worry about your father. Take the sword he’s given you, and _promise me_ you will come back before dark, with or without her.”

I stepped away so I could look her in the eye. “I’ll be back by _noon_.”

Mother laughed, but it was the saddest laugh I’d ever heard. “Oh, child, I pray that courage stays with you when there isn’t a roof over your head and a warm meal in your belly. This world is becoming hard; I am afraid you will have to become hard to live in it.”

“I will be tough, like Father made me, and kind like you,” I told her. “Just like you always say I should.”

“Blessings of Hylia on you, my little love,” she said, pulling me in for another hug and then pushing me off towards bed. “Sleep now, and I will give you your chance in the morning.”

*

I managed to again sleep through Father coming in that night, but it was long before dawn when Mother shook me awake. I went to the door, to where my wooden practice sword leaned in the crook of the wall behind the hinges, and lifted the loose floorboard to get my sling and a sack of round stones I had been collecting from the river.

Mother was not happy to see the sling – she’d taken it from me three times and I’d always gotten it back and hidden it someplace better – but she couldn’t say anything for risk of waking Father. She handed me another small sack and then I was out of the house and the door was shut behind me and I was off to find Saria.

The little sack Mother had given me had three boiled eggs in it, with a note that said _never forget to eat_. I folded the note up and put it in the pocket of my shirt and tied the sack of eggs to my belt on the opposite side as the sack of sling stones. My sword – with as good an edge as deku wood can hold – went over my shoulder so it didn’t get caught up on things on the ground and my sling went into my belt at the middle of my back.

It was _dark_. I wasn’t ever allowed out when it was so dark out, because Father and Mother agreed that Hyrule during the day and Hyrule during the night are like two different worlds. I had to leave this early to get out ahead of Father, though, so I ran through town as quietly as I could.

I went right back to the place we’d last seen Saria, and I remembered how she’d turned her back to us and started walking towards the corner of the bog where the red frogs come out. It would be safer and quieter to go around the side of the water, but finding Saria was more important, so I waded through the same way she would have.

The moon had set and I had no light to see by, but when I got to the far side I could see what Mikael had been talking about. There were holes in the trees, just like if someone had shot arrows at them. The holes were low, though; low like they would be if somebody shot an arrow at me. Or Saria.

The holes were all on the same side of the tree, and Father had told me I could use things like that to figure out where the arrows had come from. It wasn’t hard to guess that they’d been shot from a dark patch of trees just across a narrow bit of water. Saria would have been standing in the water there to get frogs; it was the best place to catch the red ones. I made sure I was as quiet as I could be, but there was nothing in the woods but some mouthy old owl; I checked both the side where the arrows came from and the side where the arrows went.

If I was standing in the water and somebody shot arrows at me, I would have run straight forward, because the water there leads right to the fallen tree that leads to the dirty little tunnel that we crawl through to get to the old ruins on hot days when we don’t want to hike all the way around. I dropped to my hands and knees and made sure my sword was tucked in and crawled through the little space. It was probably way too small for Mother to get through, and she was the smallest of our parents; it was no wonder they hadn’t looked here.

I got through to the other side, and stopped at the end of the tunnel to look around.

I could see Saria’s footprints in the mud in front of me. She had a chunk missing from the sole of her right heel and refused to get it fixed because she said she likes how it feels when she runs. There were hand prints, too, because the trees were thick here and the rain hadn’t washed it all away. I put my hands where her hands had been and my feet where her feet had been and guessed she’d pushed up to her feet and started running. I had to take big steps to make our footprints match; another thing Father had taught me. Maybe I was tough like him already.

I didn’t run very far, though; I took a couple steps to figure out she was running and then hid and looked around some more. I pulled the eggs out of the sack at my waist and ate all three.

It was starting to get light, and as I watched the sun come up, her footprints got easier and easier to follow until they disappeared in the open, washed away by the rain. But I could see the direction they were going in, which was toward a great big tree on the side of the ruins.

Saria and I weren’t afraid of the ruins. In the back was a spring with a statue of Hylia and the water there was always warm. Even when it was cloudy or rainy, the sun shone there. Saria and I came here a lot when Father was home on leave.

I ran towards the ruin and then followed the stone walls around to the big tree and that’s when I saw the monsters.

There were two of them. _Bokoblins_. I’d never seen one before, but Mother had read to me about them and Father had a dozen stories about fighting them when they came down from Hebra or Eldin, where they lived in the remote parts of the mountains.

They were jumping around and yelling about something, and when one of them pointed with a spear I saw they were pointing at a ledge on the rocks, mostly hidden by the tree. There was a bit of yellow and blue visible through the trees, and I knew I’d found Saria.

Now what to do?

I could distract them so she could get away. But what if she didn’t go fast enough? What if only one of them followed me? What if she was halfway down and they came back?

No, I needed to make sure they couldn’t hurt her and give her plenty of time to come down.

I needed to kill them.

Father talked about killing bokos all the time. I had killed more than my fair share of frogs and lizards – it didn’t seem right to put them into the cookpot alive – and Father made sure I knew where meat came from. Looking at them, though, they didn’t look like animals.

They looked like big-eared, big-nosed, furry, ugly people.

You’re not supposed to kill people. Killing people is bad.

One of the bokos leaned back and then lunged forward, throwing his spear at the wall. I heard Saria scream and then start to cry and I just didn’t think anymore.

I pulled out my sling, set in a stone, and took aim. Spin, spin, spin, throw. The first boko fell face-first to the ground. Dazed, not dead. The second turned to me.

Spin, spin, spin, throw. He didn’t see it coming, and it got him right between the eyes. He pitched over backwards, also dazed. Also not dead. The first boko stood up, and I knew they wouldn’t let another sling stone hit them. I tucked the sling back into my belt and drew my sword.

The bokoblin laughed at me. It wasn’t a laugh like Mikael’s. It was raspy and creepy and gross and _mean_. He thought my little wooden sword couldn’t hurt him. I ran at him, and he put his spear out, as if I would stab myself with it.

He thought I was harmless because I was just a child.

He thought I was helpless. Like Saria.

I rolled to the right, came up behind him, and as he grunted in confusion and tried to look for me, I slashed my blade across his ribs. He shrieked and spun, so I held my sword up so he slit his own throat. He fell in a heap.

The second boko was standing up. Maybe he knew that swords make from the wood of the Deku tree can hold an edge, or maybe he just knew I was capable of killing him as I had his fellow. I held my sword in front of me, point low like Father had said, and waited.

The boko lunged at me, and I side stepped, dropped below his elbow and slashed upward. I was rewarded with a pained scream and a face-full of boko blood, and I rolled through the wet grass and puddled mud quickly to give myself a chance to clear my eyes. _If you cannot see, you cannot fight_.

I didn’t like Father, but his voice in my head was helping me save Saria. I reached down with one hand, scooped up a clump of sticky mud, and lobbed it in the boko’s face as he drew near. It clung to his fur and he couldn’t wipe it free as easily as I had. When he reached up, dumbly, with the second hand to try to clear his eyes, I lunged forward and buried my sword in his exposed belly.

He didn’t even cry out. He just collapsed in a heap, a balloon suddenly going empty. I wiped off my sword on the grass and ran to the big tree. I could worry about the bokos’ bodies later.

“Saria?” I said. “Are you okay?”

“No,” she said. She was crying. Her voice was very weak. It took me a minute to climb the tree and get to her, and when I finally got through the thick branches I could see she was in really bad shape.

One of the arrows had hit her in the shoulder. Another one seemed to have gotten her in the side of her stomach. She wasn’t bleeding, but the arrows were still in her. She looked really pale, much paler than normal, and she was shaking as hard as the leaves on the branch I was standing on.

“Our parents have been looking for you,” I told her. I would want to know I hadn’t been forgotten, if I was her. “They wouldn’t let me come, but Mother helped me sneak out this morning. I knew I would find you. Let’s go home, okay? I’m going to get you home.”

She nodded; she was crying too hard to speak. It was hard getting her off the rock wall without knocking any of the arrows loose, and I ended up carrying her on my back down the tree. We tried walking for awhile, but she was really weak, so I picked her up and carried her.

We didn’t see any more bokos, which was good, because I wasn’t sure how I could carry Saria and fight off a boko without her getting very badly hurt. I was afraid to put her down once I had her settled, because the arrows moved slightly and she was bleeding again.

We got halfway home – it took far longer to go around the ravine and through the woods than it did to take the tunnel – before Father found us.

“Link! How _dare_ you. I-“

I came to stop in front of him and lifted Saria slightly. “Can you take her? You run faster than me.”

He stared at me. Big and tall and dark and _angry_. And then he wasn’t angry anymore. I didn’t know what he was, but it wasn’t _anger_. It wasn’t a happy feeling, though. He leaned down and took Saria from me and then _ran_ with her back to town.

I ran behind him, able to keep up now that I wasn’t carrying my friend. Father’s legs were longer but I was _fast_. I was the best at catching frogs and I had the best memory; everything else was something Father could be mad at me for.

For now, at least.

We ran into town and Mother was there and I thought she was going to pick me up, but she just knelt in the mud in front of me. “It’s noon,” she said.

“Father helped.”

She shook her head. “It’s _noon_. On top of everything else, you have a mastery of time. Oh, my little love, I see you so clearly now. I only wish I would have seen it sooner. Come inside, get washed up, and we’ll take you to see Saria.”

I followed her into the house, where she’d heated up water for me to wash up in. I never got warm water when Father was home. He said cold water would make me tougher. If I didn’t use the warm water, I would get in trouble for wasting it. I washed up quickly and hoped that he didn’t see it was warm.

He didn’t even come home until I was done, though. I put on clean clothes and was pulling on my boots when he came inside.

“You left in the dark without permission,” he said. He was angry with me again. I put my hands behind my back and made sure I didn’t look away, so he would know I was listening to him.

“He had mine,” Mother said. I wish she didn’t. Father would yell at me and give me work to do and it would be over with. When Mother defended me it always took longer.

“Stay out of this,” Father said.

“No,” Mother told him, walking over to stand in front of me. I couldn’t see Father; I hoped he didn’t think I stopped listening. “No, this has gone on too long. You stop this and leave him be.”

“He has to be tough if he wants to-“

“He’s a little boy!” Mother yelled. “And he found Saria when _you didn’t_. He brought her home when _you couldn’t_. He’s already a better man than you. Leave him be!”

Father was very quiet for a moment, and when he started to talk, he didn’t shout. Usually, he shouted. “Everything I have ever done has been for this family, for his future, to put food on our table. You have no right to-“

“Mikael was accepted into the army, and your brother never treated him half so badly as you’ve treated Link,” Mother interrupted.

“He’s going to be more than a soldier,” Father told her. “He’s going to be more than just a knight! He’s going to-“

“You have no idea what he’s capable of,” Mother said. She was getting louder. Usually Mother spoke quietly and Father shouted. Father was listening better when Mother shouted, though. Maybe she should shout at him more. “You push and you punish and you never _look_ at him. You don’t know who he is! You know nothing about him! All you see is a vessel to overcome your own failings.”

“I have no failings!” Father yelled at her. It was so sudden, I jumped. I clasped my hands together tightly and made myself hold still.

“You have a failed marriage,” Mother said. Her voice was soft but still angry. “You’re a failed husband. And I’m going to see to it that your failure as a father doesn’t do any more damage to my son.” Mother turned to me and held out her hand. “Come on, Link.”

I put my hand in hers – Father had told me to never disobey Mother – and she pulled me towards the door.

“Link!” Father said, and I stopped. I had to pull against Mother’s hand to do it, which Father said was wrong. But not listening to Father was wrong, too. I couldn’t ever do anything right.

“If you walk out of this house, you are never welcome back.”

I looked up at Mother. She nodded and let go of my hand. “It’s your choice, my love. It’s past time you got to make your own choices.”

I turned back to face Father. “I’m supposed to take care of Saria, Father,” I told him. “Mother said once I got cleaned up we would go see her. May I go see Saria, please?”

I watched as his jaw went tight. He only did that when he was very angry, but it meant he wasn’t going to say anything. I liked him most when he didn’t say the angry things he thought. He nodded at me and Mother took my hand again and we walked out of the house.

There were a lot of people gathered around Saria’s house. Mother sent me inside on my own. There was a pack around the door, but I was small enough to weave my way through. As I pushed into the crowd I could hear Mother talking to someone behind me. I heard her say something about Tabantha, a place called Lake Illumeni, and people around her saying things like _good for you_ and _its about time_ and _he has a place with me if he wants it_. Mother must have been meant more than just going to Saria’s when we left the house.

Saria was more important right now, though.

I made my way to the door of her room. Mikael was there, keeping everyone out. He looked older to me, like I had been away for years instead of just one morning.

“Link! She’s asking for you. You can go in.”

Mikael opened the door just a crack, just enough for me to slip through. Somebody else tried to go in behind me, but Mikael blocked their path. “For fuck’s sake, man, show a little respect. A little girl is dying.”

He said the last word as the door shut behind me, but I heard him.

I really wished I hadn’t. I tried not to think about it.

There were four people in the room. Saria’s mother and father stood together, by the open window. Wise Woman Hannah was sitting on one side of the bed, holding Saria’s hand. Everyone was crying.

“Link!” Saria said when she saw me. “Link, I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head and hurried over to the open side of her bed. “You don’t have to be sorry, Saria. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I should have come back with you, with Mikael. I should have-“

“Those bokos shouldn’t have hurt you,” I told her, and she bit her bottom lip, hard. “There’s never been bokos in our bog before, Saria. What happened wasn’t your fault.”

“You saved me,” she said, and gave me her other hand. “I knew you were a hero.”

I stuck my tongue out at her, and she laughed. “I’m not a hero. A hero would have saved you sooner.”

Saria frowned at me. She was still so pale. I had thought she would look better once she was in bed and the Wise Woman saw her. Maybe Mikael was right. Maybe she was dying. Maybe I hadn’t gotten there fast enough.

“Your father made you wait,” Saria said. She sighed, and the air rattled through her throat. I had never heard that sound before, but I knew it, deep in my stomach where mother told me to listen. Mikael was right. “You would have come that night to get me if you could. You knew where I was.”

My throat hurt, like I had tried to swallow a rock.  All I could do was nod.

“Promise me something?”

“I’ll promise you anything,” I said, nodding as fast as I could.

“Promise me... you won’t let anybody ever... keep you from... doing what... you know... is right.”

Her eyes kept closing, and her whole head moved as she worked to openethem. “I promise,” I told her.

She smiled, and closed her eyes. Her breath kept rattling but it was softer and slower now.

“She’s sleeping,” Wise Woman Hannah said to me. “You’ve brought her peace, young man.”

“I meant what I said,” I told the Wise Woman.

“She wouldn’t have found peace if you didn’t,” she said back.

Saria’s parents were crying again – so hard they both shook their heads when I tried to talk to them – so I made my way out of the house.

The crowd had thinned outside. The village was still noisy – people talking, women crying – but no one stopped me. I walked back to my house. The door was open.

Father was gone. Mother was folding up her things and putting them in the middle of a thin blanket. She stopped when she saw me. She tried to talk but started to cough. It didn’t rattle like Saria’s breath but it gave me the same sinking feeling in my chest.

“I have a house in Tabantha,” she said, and I felt sick to my stomach. “Your Father has only gone for a walk; he’ll be back soon. Hannah says I should leave sooner rather than later, the dry air will help me get over this cough. I don’t intend to come back.”

I nodded and sat down at the kitchen table. She sighed and then coughed again, longer this time.

“I know what you’re going to say,” she told me, “but I want you to have the choice. You’ve lost a measure of innocence today, and there’s no way to get that back. You can come with me if you want. You can come now or follow later. Or you can stay here with your father in the Village.”

“What do you want me to do, Mother?”

She smiled and swallowed heavily – forcing back a cough, I thought. “I want you with me, always. But tell me, my little love, what happened to the bokoblins who shot arrows into your Saria?”

The words were hard to form. I knew how to answer the question, but the air was thick in my throat. “I... I... killed them. I killed them, Mother.”

She nodded and made a little motion with her hands, telling me to go on. “And how do you feel?”

“Angry,” I told her.

Her smile went away, and she looked so sad for a moment I was sure I’d disappointed her. “Mad at who, Link?”

“Me.”

“Why?”

“I could have done it faster.”

She sat down on the side the bed – the hard, lumpy, pokey left-side bed – and coughed again. When she took her hand away from her mouth, there was a streak of black on it. “You could have. And you didn’t because your Father stopped you. Because I stopped you. Because you’re a _little boy_ who isn’t going to get the childhood you deserve. And I’m sorry, my little love. I am so sorry.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It isn’t a fair answer, but someday you will know who you are. You’ll live the life I saw in my dreams, when you rested beneath my heart. You will wield light itself, and walk hand-in-hand with the Divine. I can only pray that I will live to see it. And then – only then – will you understand everything you never had.”

“Mother?”

“Your choices will be limited, Link. You’re so young – Great Golden Goddesses, you are still so young! – but this is one of the last things I can give you. Choice. What do you want to do?”

“I want to be here when Saria gets better,” I told her. It didn’t feel right, even as I said it.

Mother seemed even sadder, then, but she coughed instead of cried. She had to catch her breath once she was done, and the blood on her hand was bright where it streaked against the black. “My love, Saria isn’t going to get better. The arrow wounds mortified in the swamp. By holding you back from your calling, we’ve killed your friend, your father and I. And by trying to fill your shoes, I’ve given myself the same fate. It will take me far longer than Saria, but I have learned my lesson.”

“You’re dying, Mother?” I tried not to cry as I said it – Father hated it when I cried – but it was too much. The lump in my throat and the weight in my belly conspired to pull the tears from my eyes.

“Not today, my little love. And not tomorrow! But all men must die, and mine will come sooner the longer I tarry here.”

“So go!” I jumped up from my chair and rushed over to her. She fell to her knees and wrapped me up in a hug. I realized she was never going to sweep me up into her arms again.

“I will. I will, I promise. But you must make the decision. Are you coming with me?”

I closed my eyes and tried to think through the options. If I left, if I stayed. Father or Mother. No Mikael either way. The house I knew or a house to learn. Who would I study from, where would I train, how would I become tougher than Father if I only ever learned from him? I tried to listen to the quiet in my heart, like Mother had always said to do, and the answer I heard wasn’t one of the options she’d given me.

“I will stay here for as long as Saria does,” I told her, and she nodded her head. “And then I will go where the Goddess takes me.”

Mother sat back on her heels and cupped my face in her hands. She was crying again, but her smile was happy. “I am so proud of you, Link,” she said. Then she pushed me back a step and turned her head and coughed. She coughed until she couldn’t hold herself upright, until she held onto the floor and her tears changed from joy to pain.

The only thing I felt was _old_.

I got a towel to clean the blood off the floor, and she finished packing. She kissed me on the top of the head and pointed to a pile of clothes on the foot of her bed. They were thick and green and looked strong enough to repel my wooden sword.

“It’s a bit too big for you, but come visit me as you grow and I’ll mend it for you,” she said. “It won’t keep you safe, but it will protect you more than regular clothes.”

She folded up the ends of the blanket into a pack, and put it on her back. She twisted the corners of the blanket and tied them together across her chest. She took a walking stick from beside the door and turned to look at me. She was sad, but proud. I stood up a little straighter.

“There is something you were born to do,” she said. “Every fiber of your being was created for it. Every trial and every action of your life will carry you directly to that moment. And when you get there, remember: there is no one better suited for your task anywhere, in all of time. Just you. You cannot fail. You must only be yourself.”

“But, Mother... you haven’t told me what that is, who I am. How will I know?”

She tipped her head to the door and smiled at me. “Go find out.”

She coughed again, not as hard this time, and walked out of the house.

I looked around the building – it wasn’t home anymore, not really, not without her – and picked up the few things I wanted to take with me. The clothes I’d worn to go find Saria – washed and hung to dry by Mother – my sword and sling, a piece of flint and a small knife to strike it with. The green clothes – which were _heavy_ and way too big for me – had a thick brown pack stacked with them on the bed, and I stuffed it full of my things. I slung it over my shoulder and shut the door behind me when I left.

It took Saria three days to die. She didn’t wake up again. Her parents yelled accusations at my father in the village green after her body was given back to Hylia. I stayed by her grave long after the town grew quiet. I pretended she was still there, that she could hear me. I told her everything Mother had said, everything I was confused about. I remembered everything she and I had ever dreamed of doing, of seeing, and I promised her I would see every inch of Hyrule and come back to tell her about it.

Father came looking for me near nightfall.

“Come home,” he said.

I was afraid of him. He was bigger than me, stronger than me; he was angry and he was mean. I had always thought he was doing what he had to, to make me tough. To make me strong.

But Mother called him a Failure.

Saria had died, Mother had gotten that cough, because I had listened to Mikael and stayed home. Because I’d done as they told me. Because I’d _listened_ , because I’d tried to be a good child. Because even though I knew I would still be wrong, I had tried to do what Father had wanted me to do.

_Promise me you won’t let anybody ever keep you from doing what you know is right._

“I don’t have one,” I told him, and turned my back on him.

He didn’t say anything else as I picked up my pack and walked away.

 


End file.
